


And a Pony, or Just a Little Hoarse

by Zabbers



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Fluff, Gen, Humor, I hope, The Vault (Doctor Who), belated silliness, no really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29982552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zabbers/pseuds/Zabbers
Summary: Missy gets that pony. Unfortunately.
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor/Missy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	And a Pony, or Just a Little Hoarse

The pony is a mistake. Missy had never expected the Doctor to deliver on that particular demand—surely, his standards of goodness do not allow for the confinement of such an animal in a windowless box of a room, damp and cold and already containing the sort of beastie who might all too easily be imagined to want to eat it: as though Missy would ever be so uncouth.

But the doors open, hooves clip-clop across brittle surfaces, and an overpowering scent, sweaty hair and ammonia and half-digested grass, moves in to fill the vault ahead of its source, a stumpy, squat, and myopic creature with a pale fringe over a long face. It’s a hairdo that could give Missy’s a run for its money, a rockstar fringe, nature’s blowout. Missy touches her own mane, aware that it’s not as full and fluffy as it could be. 

The pony advances. Missy takes an involuntary step back. The pony tosses its spirited head. Missy puts her hand up. Probably, her eyes are wide. She feels her delicate nostrils flaring. 

“Doctor?” she calls, heedless of the querulous quiver in her voice. 

There’s a paper tag at the pony’s neck. _He’s called Mac. Nardole will deliver feed._

The pony releases some of that inefficiently digested grass with a delicate plop. 

The paper updates: psychic! 

_And a shovel._

Missy considers what it would take to murder the Doctor with this shovel in a game of Time Lord whac-a-mole. 

Mac snorts. 

Mac scents the air, his lips pulling back from his teeth. Mac has impressive teeth. 

Missy draws her hand back. She looks down at the little pony. She had imagined riding around and around the vault when the Doctor visits, never addressing her newfound position of power, peering at him from great heights. On Mac’s broad back, she’d be lower to the ground than ever.

Mac continues to move into Missy’s personal space, pushing his nose into the hand that she so hastily withdrew. His breath is very warm. He snuffles and extends soft lips against her palm. 

Wind blowing westerly off the sea over sedge and sweet vernal grass and the salt succulence of sea pink: the land slopes and slopes, rocky and sandy underfoot, until it drops away to the sudden sheer geo cliff. As the graze changes from season to season, so the light and the fog and the rain are forever changing.

“Oh,” Missy says. 

_No carrot? Nae neeps?_

“Sorry.”

_Maybe in your pockets?_

“Ah, no, mustn’t get into those.” She pets him, half to prevent him from trying to explore any closer. 

The Doctor, that coward, pokes his head in the door only then. Missy watches intently in the dim light for the squelch of his boot in Mac’s muck. She wills him to step in it, and he does, then proceeds to trail it across her floor. 

“No. No, no, no, no,” she says, so very affronted. “Not unless you intend to get down on your hands and knees and clean that.”

The Doctor sticks his hands in his pockets. “You can’t expect to keep a pet if you won’t take care of him.”

“I don’t see you cleaning up after yours.”

“I haven’t got any pets.”

Missy blinks at him in studied confusion.

At length, he clears his throat, weakly justifying the pun in the title.

“You asked for a pony,” the Doctor says, as though he always does as she demands. 

“I asked for a particle accelerator too.”

“Oh, right. Yes.” He draws a hand out of his coat to give her three worn paperbacks, puffy with broken spines and chalky with acidified paper. 

“ _National Velvet_ , _Misty of Chincoteague_ , and _The Saddle Club_ ,” she reads from the colourful covers. “Are these children’s books?”

He’s still digging around in his pocket, and finally produces a fourth volume, slightly newer, apparently only half-read. _Bad Unicorn_ , it’s titled. 

“A care manual might be more useful. Or a butchery handbook?”

“You're not going to _eat_ Mac!”

“Only if it's him or me.”

“Ponies don't eat people.”

“Are you sure of that? Have you seen these teeth?” Missy bares hers at the Doctor. Mac yawns in response, tilting his head up, closing his eyes, and letting _his_ emerge all the way to the gums.

“Ponies don’t eat people,” the Doctor repeats firmly, looking uncertain. 

He pulls yet another object out of his pocket and holds it out to Mac, who takes it delicately from the Doctor’s flattened hand. Mac’s delighted satisfaction radiates from him with every crunch and burst of cold, sweet juice. The Shetland Pony lips the Doctor’s palm for any last trace of apple, and when he’s done, he nickers softly. The Doctor combs the long fingers of his other hand through Mac’s glamorous locks. 

“Cheat,” Missy says.

The Doctor smiles at her jealousy.

**Author's Note:**

> He doesn't let her keep Mac, of course. 
> 
> Fortunately.


End file.
